Category: TESOL

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Teaching in Brazil in Times of Covid-19 – Year 2

A fellow teacher, Ms. Teresa Thompson, based in Lincoln, Nebraska sent me this email last week:

The Teacher's Notes | OUTLOOK magazine
Teresa Thompson

“Just got through hearing about Brazil again on National Public Radio (hope it’s not too large a file–can send the link instead, if you want -https://www.npr.org/2021/03/18/978832056/brazil-covid-19-cases-climb-as-deaths-overwhelm-hospitals-and-funeral-services ). Here’s what we are saying about your country...you guys are a global threat! It’s your turn to lead the world in this pandemic. Not exactly an honor though, I’m afraid. Please take precautions seriously and by all means, don’t turn down any vaccines!“

Here’s my reply to Teresa Thompson’s email:

States in red have a fast advance of Covid infections, yellow stable and green declining (March 10, 2021)

“Thank you Teresa for your concern. Yes, the situation down here is cause for concern especially around the poor areas of the large urban centers.” 

“Many pastors in our union and local conferences have already died or are in the ICU  – the grim reaper is taking also younger people – contrary to last year – now the number of deaths of the elderly is down by 25% while the numbers of deaths of people between 20 and 50 has increased by 65% .”

“All we can do is stay home as much as possible, keep clean hands and wear a mask when outdoors. “

“I still notice a strong international bias against Brazil because of our moronic president – and I mean it – he still insists that COVID is just the flu, people who die is because they were already sick and would die anyway, he preaches that masks are filthy, useless and make people sick from wearing them. No wonder many Brazilians now blame him for the nearly 300k deaths and call him a genocider.” 

Bolsonaro, um presidente provocador e sem máscara - ISTOÉ DINHEIRO
While Covid spreads like bushfire, our President refuses to wear a mask saying that the mask will make him sick

“And also the nation is divided – at least 30% of the population blindly believes what president Bolsonaro says (I’m calling him now Bolsominion 😜) – and so many people keep on walking around without masks and saying that a lockdown would be devastating to the Brazilian economy – a few deaths wouldn’t be as bad. 🤦🏻‍♂️ And going to group protests on streets to defend the president. “

“To add salt to the wound, state and municipal governments opposing the president started bickering among themselves and not following a coordinated movement to raise awareness of the population … approving mini lockdowns and labeling some COVID treatment hospitals as “catastrophe hospitals” and changing directives about what should companies and citizens do during this time. 

Let me give you an example: One day the state orders: No food takeaway. Only through delivery or drive-thru. The next day: Takeaways are allowed. The next day: No takeaways. Are we entitled to feel a little lost and confused?! “

Bares e restaurantes de SP enviam ofício a Doria pedindo liberação de retirada dos pedidos no local | Jovem Pan
No takeaways in SP. Only delivery or drive-thru

“The picture ain’t pretty in our sad tropics but hope still shines. “

Profissional de saúde trata paciente com Covid em UTI do Hospital São Paulo, em São Paulo, no dia 17 de março. — Foto: Amanda Perobelli/Reuters

“Stay well. Stay safe and Happy Sabbath. “

Teresa replied with the following:

“Thanks for the first hand reporting there. Sounds like you not only had mixed messaging about the virus, like we had with ex-President Trump. Sounds like all your messaging has been bad!”

“Wonder if that variant is responsible for the increased deaths in younger people. Now that’s something I bet they are concerned about–or should be!“

“I’m actually concerned that now that I’m vaccinated, my daughter’s family won’t be quite as cautious. I’ve worried all along about them getting sick too. There’s just no rhyme or reason involved in this covid (sic).”

“But it’s sad that something that should be uniting the world, is actually dividing it so much. I keep praying that God will have mercy on all of us….no matter how we mess up and disappoint Him.”

Hope this message gives you, dear reader, a glimpse of the situation in Brazil.

creative title* - Imgflip
Yes, Virginia. Laughter IS the best medicine.

Staying safe and hopeful.

Cheers,

Mo

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Visual media as more than just entertainment

I remember when I was a wee kid in a state school in a corner of this giant metropolis called São Paulo, I would be daydreaming in class about the time the bell would ring and I would rush back home so I could watch some of my favorite TV shows. I don’t recall a time a teacher used some visual resources in class other than the illustration in a book (sometimes, which would totally grab my attention).

Stanford 'tips-by-text' program helps boost literacy in preschoolers, study finds
Images boost literacy in children and adults

At church they were more “sophisticated”. From an early age, our Sabbath School teachers would use flannel board bible stories that would transport us to bible times and I had a red-letter day every time I was allowed to touch the figures and place them on the board. How many stories did I learn and understand thanks to those illustrations.

Staying Christian: Why I Don't Just Pick Up and Leave the Church for Good | Resurrection & Recovery
Flannel Board Bible Stories were awesome visual resources

Today I know that Visual Literacy helps learners to follow a story and predict what’s going to happen, activates their memory and their vocabulary, as well. Many times, visual resources were used simply as entertainment or a distraction to keep us children quiet.

The influence of images on learners

Church also introduced me to the first slide projector – with colorful pictures illustrating prophecy or projecting the words to a new hymn, at a time when television was still black and white (we got our first color tv in 1978 – that was so memorable that I remember the year).

Magic lantern - The latest novelty in Church music. Substitution of... News Photo - Getty Images

Only in college after 1983 was I introduced to the amazing overhead projector and the ability to write and highlight texts on the screen.

Mary Loftus on Twitter: "Jerome Sheahan going old-school with with the OverHead Projector - and the lecture style - getting some laughs 🤣 @NUIG_UL_RDay… https://t.co/KMRNbDxWeC"
Overhead projectors allowed teachers to highlight points on the board

In the 1980s VCRs became more popular and pretty soon we started using some video lessons in the language classroom – those videos were especially prepared for the class as companions to their coursebooks (nothing much has changed today – maybe some time in the future I’ll talk about the video courses available for the ESL/EFL market).

If you knew somebody living in an English-speaking country maybe you could ask them to mail you one or two VHS tapes with the recordings of some tv shows and commercials and explore them to your heart’s content. (In my case, only in the early 90s did I come across some VHS tapes that somebody from the school where I was teaching had recorded when traveling to the US).

But videos were still seen as just a “break” from the lesson. When the teacher wheeled in a TV set and VCR the students knew they would have some “down time”. At best, the video was seen as a glorified listening activity or simply as a decorative resource giving a break to both teacher and students.

Today, however, we know we can use videos and images in a much more purposeful way. Here’s an example of a talk at the Global Teacher’s Festival on Visual Literacy and the many different approaches we can have:

Visual Literacy uses

Most teachers will agree that video use in the ESL/EFL classroom brings many benefits:

  1. it exposes students to authentic materials
  2. it provides more motivation and interest
  3. it gives learners the opportunity to read as well as listen to messages simultaneously

But there are also disadvantages in using videos in the classroom:

  1. video technology might be scarce or you might have connection problems
  2. it may be boring if overused
  3. it may encourage passivity on both teachers and learners (“the other day an adult learner said: why don’t you give me songs to listen to and fill in the gaps?” My answer – “do you need ME to give you a song to listen and get the words? Have you ever heard of MTV? Can’t you google it up on your own?”)

The appeal of visual media continues to make videos and pictures an amazing educational tool with a high potential impact when properly used. They are now more accessible and less cumbersome to use. Let us take advantage of them in our lessons.

Cheers,

Mo

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Wrong is such a strong word

This past weekend, Thiago, an English learner messaged me asking: “What’s right to say: “That’s he singing” or
“That’s him singing”

Welcome, singular “they”
He vs Him

And he added a compliment😋: “Hello, you know you are the wisest one to answer to me this question Which of this two sentences are right? Is right?”

My first inclination was to answer: “Well, firstly, let us learn the difference between THIS and THESE”. LOL… but, actually I sent him the following answer:

“[It is + nominative pronoun/subject pronoun] is generally regarded nowadays as hyperformal, and its use, even in written English, tends to be restricted to cases where the pronoun is followed by a relative clause, as in:

It is I who am to blame.

contrasting with informal

(*)It’s me that’s to blame.

You are unlikely to be criticized by anybody – except the most ardent, dyed-in-the-wool purist – for saying, or even writing, “It’s me” rather than “It’s I”. Indeed the juxtaposition of inherently informal contraction it’s with formal ‘I’ would even strike most speakers as rather ludicrous! – so stick with “that’s him” 🤪


Thiago replied: “I said this and a girl from US told me it’s not correct”🤔

Moacir Sena: “And … who cares? – do you know everything about the Portuguese language just because you’re Brazilian ?! Native speakers mostly never know how their language functions – they just use it 😋 – I’m never a stickler for details …”
Thiago: Hahahaha. So I also wasn’t wrong?🤔

Again I was tempted to correct him say: “Wasn’t I wrong?!” but let it pass.

Adventure Time: I Was Wrong LYRICS HD - YouTube


Moacir Sena: Wrong is such a strong word. 🤔There is no Academy of the English Language to dictate what’s right or wrong and if there were such an institution people would disregard it – so in language matters better focus on:

  1. Usage: what do people use or say?
  2. Clarity: can others understand what I’m saying?
  3. Taste: do I like it?
  4. Register: it depends on the place, time and public to receive the message. Thiago replied: “Interesting. Wise words. I (sic) gonna say as they say. Even if it is grammarly (sic) weird hahaha.”

My advice to Thiago: Read, my friend. Read a lot. Read good books and articles from good magazines and serious newspapers. Observe the way the phrases are written and flow. Watch lectures and good documentaries where you will have a clear exposure to the language. And keep on learning.

Pronouns. - ppt download
Pronouns

Cheers,

Mo

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5 Ways to Combat Zoom Fatigue For Teachers

Since March 2020 most of us have been thrown into the digital world of online classes – no matter if we were ready or not. Some of us were already teaching using FaceTime, or Skype for example – I usually used online classes when traveling accompanying my sweetheart on her business trips. But all of us had ALL our classes moved to the online environment overnight. And that was good, considering that the option to online classes would be no classes at all and consequent unemployment.

We started watching tutorials on how to share screens, take notes, set up students in virtual classrooms, play videos and other audio practices while “the plane was up in the air” as the cliché accurately portrays it.

During this year I’ve learned some things about dealing with online classes and trying to control /avoid the so-called Zoom Fatigue.

We’ve all already felt the effects on us of extended spells of online classes – headaches, tiredness, red eyes, backache, tired legs, etc. Here I outline 5 ways to combat Zoom fatigue:

  1. Don’t multitask during the sessions – I know it’s tempting to google up something, check Whatsapp, etc while something else is happening, but it will take a toll on your mind.
  2. Alternate speaker view and gallery view.
  3. Turn your video off sometimes (when showing a video, for example).
  4. Take breaks. Yes… I know we do a great job making students feel they are the only “special” ones – but actually we have more than one student and back-to-back classes will cause you stress – if necessary end your class 2-3 minutes earlier and start the next class 2-3 minutes later (punctuality will suffer but your body and mind will thank you for that; and your students too – a teacher who’s feeling well will be conducive to the wellbeing of their students).
  5. Make sure your “class” space feels different than your “relaxing” space. Get up and go to the bathroom, get a cup of herbal tea (coffee is not the best option but if it helps you who am I to deny you this comfort drink), drink water (keep yourself hydrated). Look out the window. If possible, relax somewhere else.

Of course, there will be days you will get more tired than others but by following these simple tips you may prevent burnout.

Stay safe. Stay well.

Cheers

Mo

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JOB INTERVIEWS IN A FOREIGN OR SECOND LANGUAGE

As a teacher of English and Spanish as Second or Foreign Languages for nearly 30 years one thing that will make students get highly motivated and pay attention to every word you say is when they have to undergo a job interview process. Some will break out in a cold sweat or start crying in the bathroom. What advice would I give them?

Tips for Medical Interviews - MedEntry Blog
Avoid clichés during the interview: “I’m a great team player” – say: “I collaborate …”

1. What can I do to prepare for an interview? First, do some homework on the company – what’s the company looking for? Review your skills, experience, qualities… etc. And most importantly: WHY are you interested in the job?

2. What can I do if I’m really nervous in my job interview? Spend time preparing, rehearsing, learning more about the prospective company and job position.

3. Ok, … but what about my language skills? Oh yes,… that. Don’t lie about your language skills – try to be fair and balanced in your assessment. Check key vocabulary that describes your work and persona. Don’t be afraid to say: “Sorry, I’m afraid I didn’t get that” – don’t apologize for your lousy language skills (sometimes you won’t even need to speak it after you get the job – the language was just a filter, honestly). Be willing to listen. Ask the interviewer to repeat – it’s better than just trying to imagine what they asked or said. Check if you got it right. Use lexical fillers during your answers- buy time while thinking – umm… uh… well…

4. Provide examples of your work. Lessons you learned.

I don’t know if you will get the job but you will most certainly have had the chance to network and build your own confidence towards the next job interview.

Should you be funny in a job interview? | PBA
Preparation will prevent awkward situations

Good luck and lots of success

Cheers

Mo

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Racism in my ELT Experience

Racism in Brazil shows its ugly face in some subtle ways – white people like me many times don’t even realize it. I grew up in a white family but at least one of my grandmothers was brown skinned (fruit of white and indigenous relations, I’m told) but she passed when I was seven and I don’t remember her very much. A cousin of mine married a black man back in the 60s and the family despite the initial shock welcomed them (to the best of my knowledge) and they had 3 children – with their own families today. My older brother sometimes would say that black people were lazy or something to that effect, but even he had a very close black friend (who also criticized black people – but that’s another whole story). My wife is light skinned but her father was black and her mother Italian – her siblings are darker than she is – so where does one’s race begin and another’s start? What color is one’s soul?

But talking to one of my students this morning I was made to think about my own experiences as a teacher regarding racism.

My niche market has been for the past 30 years in the business and corporate world, coaching and teaching executives and helping them to brush up their language skills and presentation skills, for example.

In all these years I can’t recall a time I taught a black person, not because of their color, but because of their absence in the corporate world I circulated in. I never had a chance to teach them.

When I had a language consultancy office back in the 90s we hired teachers and translators and 90% of them were white – it’s true but we did have an English black teacher (born in London to Brazilian parents). We also hired two Nigerian teachers and I can’t recall having problems with them due to racism from clients. Sometimes there would be academic or punctuality problems but nothing related to their race, methinks. (Or was the clients’ racism disguised in comments like ” they don’t have a clear accent”, “they’re usually late”, etc).

Now, black or white is a just a matter of skin pigmentation, but the fact that they are not selected to higher positions besides cleaning offices and being the kitchen help is quite disturbing. … Coming to think of it, even the waiters and waitresses working for the boards of directors at different companies and banks tended to be light skinned.

I’m told that in some countries just the fact that a person has one black ancestor (one drop of “black blood”) already makes them black, no matter their skin color. In Brazil that’s not so. Thanks to the miscegenation of races in our country you can find at least “50 shades” of blackness or “negritude”. One can be light-skinned with white facial features and straight hair and their sibling may be darker with curly hair and both although coming from the same social, economic, and educational background, may have had entirely different experiences with racism.

Zero Chillz on Twitter | Different shades of black, Black girl aesthetic, Black is beautiful
Different shades of black

On a brighter note, people know that money is color blind and Brazilians have been discovering that dark-skinned fellow men and women can also spend money in services and goods.

But we still are far from Martin Luther King Jr’s dream when he declared: “let us judge one another on the content of our character rather than the color of our skin” .

Happy Teachings,

Cheers,

Mo

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The 10 eTeaching Commandments

We tend to like lists so I decided to present my adapted commandments (from https://www.shiftelearning.com/blog/bid/297719/The-Ten-eLearning-Commandments-Infographic) from what I’ve been learning as an online/remote teacher of English as a Foreign Language. Until 3 years ago, my wife and I used to travel a lot (she on business and I as a great travel companion) so I got used early on to teaching online using especially FaceTime – let’s say 5 or 6 years ago. Now with the pandemic, of course, both teacher and learners lost their choice of face to face or online classes. Of course, choice is still out there. One student moved from face to face to telephone-only classes. A few others decided that to pay for online classes would be a waste of time and money – like paying for a virtual sandwich – you can see it, even see its creation step by step, but not taste it, chuckles) – and they had Netflix and YouTube. Dump the teacher.

These commandments are nothing new but still relevant and mean to remind my students and I of what we are doing, the benefits of following them and the risks of breaking a single one of them.

See the source image

Commandment #1: Thou Shalt NOT Put the Learner On a Pedestal

Now, that doesn’t mean learners are not important – without them – you cannot teach, right?

Ensure that your learner feels in control and well-oriented. The learner has to know what, why, and where learning is taking place.

So this is commandment #1. Make sure the learner experience is put first and foremost, but remember they’re paying you to be a teacher not their pal or confidant. For that they’d have to pay much, much more.

Commandment #2:  Thou shalt not multitask

Thou shalt not multitask. Modern technology makes it easy to do many things at once, but that doesn’t always mean you should. If you’re communicating with others, focus on them, and them alone. Minimize the other tabs on your screen, silence your phone, and never eat or go to the bathroom during a call (unless it’s an emergency). Being on mute or having your camera turned off is not an excuse. You can wait. If you’re desperate or the meeting is running long, ask for a 5-minute break.

Commandment #3: Thou Shalt Plan, Plan, and be ready to throw the plan out of the window

Behind every successful man there is a woman, or so the saying goes. And behind every successful eLearning project, is a well-devised and detailed plan.

Beautiful idea but in practical terms the learner is not interested in whatever time and plans you have. It is THEIR agenda. Have your plan but rest assured that more often than not you won’t be able to implement it.

Commandment #4: Thou Shalt Respect Thy Learner and Thy Teacher

“R-E-S-P-E-C-T. Don’t know what it means to me” – Aretha Franklin

Ms. Franklin was right. Relationships require respect.

You’ve got to respect your learner’s intelligence and respond to their needs. Make sure you understand their background, how they like to learn, and what style of learning appeals to them. If you hit the wrong tone, your learners may feel demeaned and even insulted.

Commandment #5: Thou Shalt Not Rely Only On Technology

Yes, you read it right. You’re working with another human being. Focus on their needs not the equipment and tricks.

In today’s multi-screen world, it’s easy to think of learning in different platforms, with desktops, tablets, and smartphones each with different compatibilities and operating systems. Elearning has to change. It has to be responsive, multi-format, and look good on whatever device it’s used on.

Commandment #6: Thou Shalt Use an Agenda

When hosting or participating in a meeting, respect the attendees’ time and other obligations as much as possible.

eLearning is a practice of restraint and balance. Remember to use useful design, not decoration, and give breathing room. Just like in photography, negative space can sometimes make all the difference; there’s no need to fill every little space.

Commandment #7: Thou Shalt Focus on Competence, Not Grades

Competency-based learning lets learners move through a course at their own pace. This is a more valuable approach; the focus isn’t on completing a training program within a specific time, it’s about doing it slow, and doing it right. Competency-based training doesn’t randomly “dump” tons of knowledge on the learner, it lets the learner choose. They know when to move on, and when they’ve absorbed the material. This makes learning more effective than the “dump and run” model and the learner feels more satisfied and leaves no gaps in their skill set.

Commandment #8: Thou Shalt Show, Not Tell.

We’ve all been there. Bored in a presentation or taking an eLearning course. Checking the time every few seconds, wondering when it’s going to end.

Why do we feel this way? Usually because eLearning is designed as just conveying information, just telling. Just being spoken at.

This is one of the least effective ways to share information. If you want your audience to remember your content, you need to show, not tell. This means you should tell more stories in your course, give examples, create scenarios, you have to give the audience something they can relate to, and help them find connections between the learning content and their roles.

In a nutshell, this is how to do it: less exposition, more action. You’ll see how your learners react in a completely different way.

Commandment #9: Thou Shalt Be Respectful of Time   

eLearning has to be more sociable, but Never assume you are anyone’s highest priority. Be flexible when possible but always remember that TIME IS MONEY. When you’re remote, you must be intentional about keeping a time frame.

Commandment #10: Thou Shalt Plan for Sprints, Not marathons.

I know, this sounds counter-intuitive. But hear me out. Nowadays, learners struggle with information overload. We have stuff coming at us from mobile phones, email, the web, and good ol’ fashioned verbal communication.

Learners have too much going on already – if you bombard them with information they’re going to tune out quickly. They might retain scraps, a key word here and there, or they might retain nothing. Don’t risk it. Organize your content into small, bite-sized ‘sprints’.

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How’s English teaching changed over the last 30 years?

Wow. A landmark. 30 years of Teaching English and Spanish as foreign languages. And counting. But honestly speaking, English has always taken the lion’s share of my teaching hours.

Out of those years, over 25 have been teaching one on one so I can say a thing or two about changes in language teaching in this segment.

1. Accessibility: when I started teaching cable tv was limited. Students could watch videos of movies in English but subtitled in Portuguese. No radio programs in English…lots of English songs but how could they understand what was being sung? Limited access to lyrics. Now they have all the English speaking world at the touch of a button on their cellphone.

2. Technology – when I started teaching I not even had a cassette player and the school followed their own coursebook without cassettes. If I wanted to play a song I had to take my portable turntable and vinyl record. From cassette – to CDs and we moved up from VHS – to DVD’s and now to streaming and millions of channels on YouTube. Not to mention the hundreds of language learning apps.

3. Pedagogy – teachers were the reference in pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary. If the teacher didn’t know it how could a simple student know that word? From teacher-centered the language courses have moved on to a learner-centered approach (at least in speech). Learners can do way more than what their teachers might tell them to do (well, it doesn’t mean they’ll do it).

4. Resources – from coursebooks and the occasional imported magazine or newspaper now we all have Doctor Google. There are loads of apps for students to practice vocabulary, pronunciation, even using AI for actual conversation. They can record themselves and self evaluate their progress.

5. Creativity – that’s changed but still the same if you get my gist – I mean, we teachers have always had to resort to creativity from role playing to imaginary conversations to using tv commercials recorded on a VHS tape as part of our class material.

Despite all the improvements in pedagogy and technology some things still continue wearily unchanged.

Many students still think that a native teacher is better than a teacher who HAD to learn the language as they are doing now. After all, if the teacher says, “come, come, it’s not that difficult”, they can always argue, “not for you”. Still language schools give priority to a teaching candidate who’s spent 2 years washing dishes or cleaning houses abroad over a local language college graduate.

Many students also think grammar should be taught first even though they hate it… so it must be good like the bitter taste of medicine, right? Still controversies over teaching pronunciation and cultural values of the English speaking countries. Even those who defend the teaching of a global English accept the fact that some parameters must be defined, otherwise the English someone is learning in Indonesia might be incomprehensible to someone learning it in Ecuador.

The future will present even more changes, but some things I’m sure will remain the same: the importance of knowledgeable, committed and caring teachers working along students who have developed or discovered their own motivation.

Here’s to 30 more years of teaching!

Cheers,

Mo

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RACISM* IN THE ELT INDUSTRY

You don’t need to be a genius to know that prejudice exists everywhere you find people gathered together.

The English Language Teaching industry wouldn’t be different. After all, it’s made up of people from all nations and races.

Do teachers (not necessarily language teachers) suffer from prejudice and racism?

Yes, since forever… You don’t need to go far -just watch the trailer of my favorite classic film – To Sir, With Love with Sidney Poitier.

To Sir, with Love

But in this blog I’m not going to be talking about national or linguistic prejudices as in “he’s not a native speaker” or “I don’t like his accent”. The smelly goat in the room is about racism and skin color.

Back in the day (1990s) when I was a partner in a language school in São Paulo, we hired teachers to provide private business lessons at different multinational companies – one pre-requisite was “English native-like fluency” (hey, it was the roaring ’90s, don’t judge me)- no color stipulation.

We had some Brazilian, American, British, Swedish, Nigerian, South African and even a Tasmanian teacher (a loose cannon for sure – some day remind me to talk about him) – most of them were white, mostly in their 20s or early 30s, but not exclusively. I remember Charlotte, who I thought was an old lady back then(now I think she must have been probably in her 50s or early 60s).

I remember in special, Kendra, who was a great teacher, students loved her and not because or despite of the fact she was black. She was an exchange student between her US university and São Paulo University (USP). She was pursuing a degree in linguistics and she took on several classes with us.

We also had a Brit teacher – mixed race and nationality – mother Brazilian, father English – had been born in London and had decided to try his life in Brazil. He was a good teacher, can’t remember his background, but we could see he didn’t want to be a teacher for long. Either he would become a partner or he would jump off ship, which he did.

Never did a student call us saying “I don’t want teacher A, B or C because he or she is black”. NEVER. Sometimes there were misfits due to teaching approach, some of the foreign teachers, the famous backpackers, were not reliable with time and class preparation, etc.

Did our clients get surprised to see a black teacher waiting for them in the room? I’m sure some of them did. Talk about stereotypes – “my English teacher (any gender) is tall, slander, blue-eyed and has perfect teeth”.

Now I know that Brazilian black teachers are few and far between, especially in the self-employed segment. Why? Racism? Lack of economic and education opportunities? A combination of it all?

All I can say is that during my school (Uni) years one of my best friends (and classmates) was black. She had also had more exposure to English than I had at the time and her economic situation was also better than mine, a white boy. Go figure.

Yes, racism exists and we must fight it, but it shows itself quite often in subtle ways, as if hiding behind the skin tone of a person.

Skin Tone Color Palette
Skin tone palette

We must be aware and mindful of its presence and stand up against it when it rears its ugly face. Racism sucks.

Cheers,

Mo

*DISCLAIMER: all the statements here are my own and may not reflect the reality of every single living creature on the face of the earth.

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Surviving Covid-19: life as a self-employed teacher – Part 2

Locked in

Now over 70 days into my Quarantine – (since March 17) – what can I say? With the announcement that within the next two weeks some of the restrictions will /may /might (choose one or all three) be lifted or at least there could begin an easing out of the quarantine, some people are starting to think about their mid- to long-term plans.

Considering that I had already been teaching f2f lessons at home prior to the Quarantine measures “enforced” in São Paulo where I’m based – I already had an office – simple but convenient and comfortable – the only inconvenience is that my back is to the window – so the camera faces the window (gotta keep window and blinds closed) Feel free to suggest a different layout for my desk in my office.

Create an inviting and inspiring work/class environment with your likes and interests

Pre-Pandemic

Before the pandemic I had to get up to answer the door, other times I would go out and teach somewhere else. Now I stay in front of a screen – time goes by faster and more slowly at the same time (hard to explain it) – you feel more tired – you have no distractions or too many distractions. See what I mean?

Working from home has pros and cons – cat not included

Self-care

A great risk while working with your computer is that you can be distracted or look for distractions even with the best of intentions. For example, a student mentions a song – I immediately go to YouTube and look up the song (with lyrics, of course) to use during the class. This multitasking may sound cool or imply how efficient I am, but actually it causes distractions, and energy spent on something that could have waited.

Never ignore the importance of drinking water (hydration is king), and stretching every 60 minutes of so. Don’t deceive yourself that teaching classes sequentially back to back will do you good. They won’t. Allow breaks between classes so you can breathe, exercise (even if going to the bathroom) and stand up – to bring more oxygen to your brain.

Business in the pandemic

This week alone, two new people looked me up to ask about classes – one has already seen my work and decided to start classes as of next Monday. The other one is a 19-year-old 1st semester International Affairs college student – daughter of a former student of mine – I remember him, but not that he had once been my student – guess I’m growing old. Considering that for two months not even the phone had rung with prospective students – 2 calls in one week show resumption (hopefully) of business.

Professional Development

Braz-Tesol has been making available a wide range of webinars which are a boon to teachers everywhere offering a great lifeline and bringing a sense that things are starting to happen again. Check out their YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/

Braz-Tesol’s great new series of Language Teaching Webinars

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The light at the end of the tunnel might not be a truck moving towards you.

Fingers crossed.

Cheers,

Mo